


Proxy

by Anonymous



Series: a.nonnie.moose [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mentioned Skip Westcott, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 09:44:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18071021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “You don’t have to decide right now," Mr. Stark says. "The donation doesn’t have to be in your alter-ego’s name, it can just be anonymous. Think it over, let me know.”Peter is caught a little off-guard by the comment. Why would he need to think it over?Peter isn't as over it as he thought he was.





	Proxy

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags. Nothing is explicitly described in the fic, but there are references to past sexual assault.

It may be kind of silly, but Peter always gets a little thrill when he sees Spider-Man merch.

There hadn’t been much at the the beginning, but after the whole thing with the spaceships in New York and Wakanda and the gauntlet... well. He’d been on the news a lot in the aftermath - footage of him and Mr. Stark fighting that big dude in Washington Square Park, plus a couple short clips of Peter getting beamed aboard the Q-ship a few minutes later.

So now there are these cheap Halloween costumes in some of the local stores, with plastic Spidey-masks and red-and-blue onesies that tie closed in the back. Peter has one of them tucked away in his closet, not that he would ever admit that to anyone. Ever.

There’s other stuff too - one of the local bakeries makes a donut with red frosting and little piped spiderwebs on it. T-shirts with his mask or emblem printed on them start popping up on the table displays of  street vendors. Peter may or may not own a few of those as well. He doesn’t wear them out in _public_ , mostly just as sleep shirts.

It just never gets old, seeing stuff like that.

The plushie is new, though. He picks it up, grinning to himself. It’s a little on the cheap side, not like some of the super detailed versions he’s seen of Mr. Stark’s armor, but still. Cool.

“You have a minute? Wanted to run something by you,” Mr. Stark is saying.

“Uh, yeah.” Peter has to force himself to stop grinning down at the plushie like an idiot. Too late. Mr. Stark has already noticed.

“Cute, right?”

Peter’s not sure what to say, since it feels a little self-congratulatory to agree with that. It turns out not to matter though, because Mr. Stark is already talking again.

“Local charity makes them. Gives ‘em out to kids who’ve been victims of abuse. They also help hook families up with support services, counselors, that sort of thing. They do good work.”

“Oh wow, that’s - that’s really cool.”

“Yeah. Anyway - right now they operate out of like two rooms above a Chinese restaurant, up near Washington Heights. They’re trying to raise money to open an actual center, somewhere a little more centrally located. I wanna throw a bunch of money at them in Spider-man’s name - you cool with that?”

It also never gets old realizing how easily Mr. Stark can make stuff like that happen.

“Sure,” Peter says.

Mr. Stark looks at him, the muscles of his jaw working like there’s something else he wants to say.

“You don’t have to decide right now. The donation doesn’t have to be in your alter-ego’s name, it can just be anonymous. Think it over, let me know.”

Peter’s caught a little off-guard by the comment. Why would he need to think it over?

He knows Mr. Stark would’ve done his due diligence on the organization before he ever considered donating - or more likely, FRIDAY did all the digging and presented Mr. Stark with her findings.

But that night he pulls up their website anyway, just out of curiosity and - oh.

 _Oh_.

A tight knot of anxiety forms in his belly as he blinks down at the computer screen, having some trouble focusing on the words.

It’s not that he’d assumed anything specific when Mr. Stark said ‘abuse’, but he hadn’t realized he meant _that_ kind of abuse.

He forces himself to look at the rest of the site, familiarize himself with what they do, and how.

It’s a good thing, he reminds himself over and over again. Mr. Stark is supporting a good cause, and it’s stupid for Peter to get all twisted up about something that happened years ago, anyway.

Reading through some of the stuff is hard, though. Like a FAQ sheet with all these statistics on it, or another page that spells out some of the stages of recovery. He catches himself zoning out mid-sentence, not even distracted by anything specific, just kind of... stuck. Other parts he manages to read half a dozen times before realizing he hasn’t absorbed any of the words. It’s frustrating, and it takes way longer than it should, but he manages.

He texts Mr. Stark later that night, to give him the green light for the donation.

 _they’ll put the money to good use_ , he types.

 _I know they will, kid_ , Mr. Stark replies.

 

*

 

Peter would like to think that that’s the end of it, but it isn’t.

There’s other stuff going on - a few members of the Black Order had survived the whole gauntlet business, so there’s that to deal with. Plus Ned keeps calling Peter to freak out about his thesis defense, and Peter has to calm him down, remind him that he’s done a shitton of work on this and he knows the material backwards and forwards already, he’ll be fine.

But he doesn’t really connect the dots right away; that the sleepless nights had started right after Mr. Stark brought up that charity thing.

He stays out later and later, figuring that if he isn’t going to sleep he might as well be doing something productive. Mr. Stark comments on the extra time spent in the suit, but just in an off-hand sort of way.

It’s not like he’s trying to tell Peter to stop, or cut back, or anything like that.

The problem is, Peter is suddenly all too well aware that crime doesn’t only happen out on the street where he patrols. The kids that are being helped by that charity - the stuff they’re going through, it doesn’t happen out in public. It happens behind closed doors; out of sight. Out of Peter’s control.

He spends his nights perched on rooftops, listening to the city around him.

TVs blaring, people talking, arguing; someone cooking a late dinner for themselves. People fucking. Normally he doesn’t pay attention to any of it, but now it’s like he can’t turn it off. What if one of the sounds he’s been filtering out is a little kid, crying?

Peter stumbles home as the sun rises, collapsing into bed. He’s late getting to the lab the next day, which Mr. Stark thankfully doesn’t comment on. He does raise an eyebrow when Peter walks in and drops his bag by his station though.

“You’re looking a little rough there, kid,” Mr. Stark says.

That Mr. Stark (of all people) is commenting on how tired he looks is probably not a great sign.

Peter mumbles something about the neighborhood being noisy - it’s almost summer after all, everyone’s got their windows open. It’s louder than normal. Every spring it takes him a little while to adjust to the change, is all.

Two days later Mr. Stark gives him a pair of super-high tech earplugs. Peter thanks him profusely, shoving them in his pocket. Knowing he can’t possibly use them. The noise isn’t the real problem anyway, and Peter’s not all that eager to lay in his bed in complete silence, with nothing but his own thoughts for company.

“You know, if there’s ever anything you need to talk about,” Mr. Stark offers.

Peter shakes his head, trying to swallow down the dry lump in his throat. By now he’s made the connection. He knows what he’s doing is transference, or dissociation, or something like that anyway. He’ll get over it, he just needs to give it some time. He doesn’t need to talk about anything with Mr. Stark.

It’s not like Mr. Stark could know.

Mr. Stark is still looking at him, not pitying, not expecting anything. Just, waiting.

It’s entirely possible that Mr. Stark could know, Peter realizes with a jolt.

There were police reports, after all, and while technically Mr. Stark shouldn’t have access to those - well, Mr. Stark never really lets technicalities stop him, if there’s something he really wants to know.

Peter makes some excuse about forgetting an appointment and beats an escape from the lab. He pulls on his mask in a side alley outside the building and webs away - not even paying attention to where he’s going, just letting himself get lost in the sensation of each swing. Air rushes past him, just a little too cool to be comfortable, but the sensation is grounding, ironically enough.

It keeps him in the present moment, rather than drifting backwards.

He swings around until his shoulders are aching with exertion, his lungs burning, throat dry. He lands on a rooftop somewhere in Jackson Heights, sprawling out on his back, blinking up at the darkening sky.

So what if Mr. Stark does know, he thinks. It doesn’t - it shouldn’t change anything. It’s just a thing that happened, and it was a long time ago anyway.

Almost as if he was summoned by Peter’s thoughts, a call from Mr. Stark comes in through the mask.

“Hey, kid.”

“Mr. Stark. Um, hey,” Peter is still just a little out of breath. He’s pretty sure it comes through in his voice, despite his best efforts. “Sorry about earlier, I just had a thing - ”

“Don’t worry about it. It okay if I join you up there?”

Huh? Peter looks around, but he’s definitely alone up here. It takes a minute for him to pinpoint the distinct sound of the Iron Man suit’s repulsers, hovering a couple blocks away by the sound of it.

“Did you follow me?” Peter asks, a little put off by the idea.

“Not exactly. Figured you needed to blow off some steam, but I asked FRIDAY to give me a heads up when you stopped for a break.”

“Oh.”

That twisty feeling from earlier is back. It’s all well and good to tell himself Mr. Stark knowing doesn’t matter. It’s a whole different thing to see the man face to face, knowing that he knows, or thinking that he probably does, anyway.

There’s a flare of anger somewhere in there too. There’s a reason those police records are sealed. Mr. Stark doesn’t have any right to go digging around like that. Peter knows for a fact he never mentioned anything about it. He hasn’t talked about it in years, not to anyone.

Peter pushes himself up on his elbows, watching Mr. Stark touch down and step out of the suit.

“This is a nice spot,” he says.

Peter looks around. It isn’t. Planes are taking off from Laguardia just a few blocks away, not to mention there’s a ton of construction in that direction. He looks back at Mr. Stark blankly.

“O-okay.” Mr. Stark alters course, walking over to rest his elbows on the ledge of the building. “So is this what you do on your all-nighter patrols?”

“What, are you gonna threaten to take my suit away again if you think I’m not not getting enough beauty sleep?”

“I’m not - Pete, that’s not why I’m here. I’m not taking the damn suit away.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you did. I can make my own.”

“I know you can. I came out here because I’m worried about you.”

Peter snorts. “You do realize the hypocrisy there, right? You never sleep either, you spend days at a time working in the lab.”

“But that’s me, not you. And I never said it was healthy. Pretty sure I explicitly told you not to follow my example, at some point in the last six years.”

Neither of them speak for a while, the silence dragging out between them.

Peter hasn’t moved; still propped up on his elbows, laying on the roof. Mr. Stark is only a few feet away, looking out towards Astoria and Manhattan, his face in profile. After a while, he ducks his head, his voice quieter than before.

“It doesn’t have to be me that you talk to, you know. It can be whoever, I’ll make it happen, you know I will. I didn’t, ah - ” Mr. Stark pinches the bridge of his nose. “I wasn’t trying to mess with your head, with the charity thing. I just thought it was a good cause, and they have this whole Spider-Man theme going already. I didn’t think - ”

“It is a good cause,” Peter interrupts.

“Would it help if I said I was sorry?”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Wasn’t yours, either.”

Peter fixes him with a flat look. As if he hasn’t already been told that about a billion times. He knows it wasn’t his fault; he was a little kid.

“It’s not about me.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“There’s something like what, fifteen, twenty thousand people per square mile here? And that’s way higher in Manhattan - like, sixty, eighty, a hundred-something? I don’t know,” Peter says. “One in three, and one in seven. You know, girls and boys.”

Peter can see the comprehension dawn on Mr. Stark’s face, what he means by that.

“So you’re out here what, standing guard?”

“Listening.”

“Because somewhere down there, there’s a kid who’s about to become a statistic, and you think you can stop it, if you listen hard enough?”

“No. I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not. It’s also not really all that healthy though. Or constructive. You keep doing this to yourself, you’re not going to be much help to anyone.”

“But what about - ”

“Who, little Timmy down there? He’ll figure out how to deal with it.”

Peter feels like he’s been punched in the throat, hearing Mr. Stark say something like that, so casually.

Mr. Stark can’t really mean that, he _can’t_.

“He can man up,” Mr. Stark is saying. “Go to the police station, find the courage to tell a bunch of strangers what happened to him. And then he’ll grow up, maybe get over it, maybe not. He has to grow up though, because there’s some other kid down there who’s even younger, who’s going through something even worse.”

Mr. Stark has stepped away from the ledge, making a slow circuit of the roof with his hands shoved in his pockets. It’s the way he moves when he’s pretending to be casual. Peter’s seen it before.

“Timmy better grow up fast, so he can put on a superhero suit and a mask and try to save everyone else.”

Peter stares hard at a piece of gravel near his left heel, only opening his mouth to speak when he’s sure his voice won’t betray him.

“It’s not like that.”

“Mmm, pretty sure it’s exactly like that.” Mr. Stark looks at Peter wryly. “You know what the worst part is about being a superhero? For all the power and all the adulation - all completely deserved, by the way - I’m not actually God. It’s a constant source of disappointment, kind of a sore spot for me, personally.”

“What’s your point, Mr. Stark?”

“My point is, that if I don’t get to be God, then you definitely don’t either. You can’t hold yourself responsible for every shitty thing that happens in the entire city.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Peter whispers. “I don’t know how.”

“Maybe we could start by getting off of the roof?”

 

*

 

They end up going back to the lab.

Partially because Peter can’t quite face going home just yet, and partially because both of Mr. Stark’s own preferred coping mechanisms are readily available there: alcohol, and work. Not that Peter has any particular interest in the former, but the latter might tire his brain out, if he spends long enough at it.

So they work. Peter loses track of time, his head buried in holoprojections of chemical formulas and reaction simulations. He lets himself get lost in it, letting it drown out the sounds of city below, the numbers that have played on a loop in his brain for weeks now.

Peter doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up curled up on the sofa that’s tucked against the far wall of the lab.

He rubs his eyes and thumbs his phone unlocked. It’s nearly 10am.

Mr. Stark is across the room, tinkering around with what looks like a new quinject engine prototype.

“Hey,” Peter says, his voice scratchy. “How long was I out?”

Mr. Stark glances up. “Uhh. Not sure. FRIDAY?”

“Just over seven hours,” FRIDAY answers.

“Seemed like you slept pretty well.”

“You didn’t though.”

“Yeah well, one set of issues at a time.”

Things don’t exactly get better overnight, but they’re different, at least. When Peter’s nightly patrols inevitably devolve into sitting on rooftops, his senses stretched out as far as they can go, Mr. Stark will call him up, prodding him back to the lab.

They’ll work - sometimes together, sometimes separately, for hours on end. On better days, Peter goes home to sleep in his own bed. On other days, he ends up passed out on the couch.

On the bad days, he doesn’t go to sleep.

And Mr. Stark is… exactly the same as he always is. He snaps his fingers when he wants Peter to pass him a tool, crumples up one of Peter’s formulas that isn’t behaving in one hand and tosses it towards the trash bin, nudges Peter out of the way when he isn’t getting a line of code just right.

Peter wasn’t sure what he had expected to change, but he’d expected _something_ to change. He finds himself almost pathetically grateful when nothing does. Mr. Stark doesn’t edge around him like he’s made of glass.

It makes Peter feel a little closer to normal again.

 

*

 

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.”

Mr. Stark leaves it at that. Peter doesn’t have to explain.

The new center has two whole floors of a renovated building - there are larger meeting rooms, therapy rooms, offices. It hasn’t opened just yet, but Mr. Stark set things up with one of the Directors so they could take a look around.

“Mr. Stark, such a pleasure to meet you,” a tall woman with close-cropped hair greets them at the door.

“Ms. Harkin, thanks for making the time.”

“Please, call me Laura.”

“Tony,” Mr. Stark says, shaking her hand, then steps back and gestures towards Peter.

“Peter Parker, my intern. He spends a lot of time in our R&D department, thought it might be good for him to spend a little time seeing what good all that sweet tech money can do.”

Laura shakes Peter’s hand as well.

He’d briefly considered coming today in his suit and mask, offering up his official stamp of approval as Spider-Man, but something about it hadn’t sat right with him. Instead, he’s just here as himself, plain old Peter Parker.

Laura takes them on a tour of the place, giving a fairly comprehensive overview of their services and funding allocations. A lot of the more business-y stuff goes over Peter’s head, but Mr. Stark looks suitably approving of everything, so Peter figures it all must be pretty good.

They end up in her office, which is comfortable but nothing flashy. Peter likes it.

Plus, there’s one of the little Spider-Man plushies perched on her desk.

“I wanted to express my thanks once again, Mr. Stark, for helping to arrange such a generous donation from - well, from our mascot here,” she says, gesturing at the doll.

“I’m happy to do it, and I know if Spider-Man himself was here he would thank you for all the work you’re doing.”

“Please pass along my thanks to him, as well,” she says, grinning.

“Of course,” Mr. Stark says without missing a beat. “Although I have to ask, not that I take it personally or anything, but you couldn’t stretch the budget to include some plushies of me, too? What, am I not cute enough?”

Laura laughs. “Unfortunately for you, your identity is exactly why Iron Man doesn’t really work with what we’re trying to do here.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow.”

“Everyone knows who you are,” she explains, folding her hands on the desk. “The kids that come here, if all they needed was a nice story about how a billionaire in a suit of armor was going to fly down to protect them from their nightmares, then our work here would be a hell of a lot easier.”

“So what makes Spider-Man different?” Peter asks. But in the back of his mind, he thinks he might already know.

Laura opens her hands, spreading them out palm-up. “Because anyone can wear the mask.”

“Some kids - not all of them, but a good number - find it helpful to imagine that they _are_ Spider-Man. When they have to do something scary like talk to the police, or testify in court, they’re helping put the bad guys in jail, just like Spider-Man does.”

Peter’s hands go tight on the arms of the chair, heart pounding.

Laura is looking at him consideringly, and a part of his brain is screaming _she knows!_ \- he’s not even sure what he thinks she knows - that he’s actually Spider-Man? Or that he’s been one of those kids, gathering up his own false courage, struggling to put his experience into words.

He thinks it must just be in his head though, because in the next moment Laura has moved on, talking about the challenges of prosecuting those types of cases.

There’s some back and forth between Laura and Tony about sourcing lawyers and managing caseloads, Peter barely listens to any of it. He barely pays attention to anything, actually, somewhat absently going through the motions of thanking Laura and saying goodbye.

Before he knows it they’re back in the car. Mr. Stark shoves one of the little plushies into his hands. He takes it without really looking.

“Scale of one to ten, how are you feeling right now?” Mr. Stark asks.

Peter swallows. “I’m good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

It’s the truth. It feels like a weight has been lifted off of his back.

Something about hearing Laura explain what the little Spider-Man dolls meant, that Peter was helping them just by being himself, being an example for them. It settles some part of him, deep inside.

He hands the plushie back to Mr. Stark.

“Thanks, but I don’t need that.”

"Of course not, you're Spider-Man." 

"For me it was Iron Man, anyway," Peter adds, quietly.

Mr. Stark is facing straight forward, not looking at him. Even in profile, his expression looks pained.

"I had a mask that I wore around everywhere - you know, after. I think I even slept in that thing. It must've been so gross."

Mr. Stark glances over at him.

"Did it help?"

"Yeah, it helped a lot."

"Good."

 


End file.
